The official release in Japan took place on August 30.
The first Blu-ray model is a BD single drive camcorder, code-named DZ-BD70. It can record approximately one hour of 1920×1080 full high-definition video, or two hours of 1440×1080 high definition video on a 8cm Blu-ray disc.
The other feature is Hitachi’s line up is a Hybrid Cam, the DZ-BD7H. Besides the Blu-ray drive, the new cam features a 30 GB built-in hard disc drive, which can record approximately four hours of 1920×1080 full high-definition video or up to eight hours of 1440×1080 high-definition video. As expected, the content stored on the HDD can be copied to a Blu-ray drive within the camcorder.
The DZ-BD70 will retail in Europe for 1300 Euro. The hybrid DZ-BD7H will be a bit more expensive – Euro 1500.